Finally, a Nursery Glider You’ll Be Excited to Own

As soon as the prospect of "baby" enters a person’s life, they are inundated with advice. Much of this is about ways to stave off the stress and lack of sleep an infant brings to a household, and as such, this advice comes with endless recommendations for things you can purchase that will assist you in your endeavor to make life a little bit easier. Every parent has their favorite thing that was a godsend for their particular child, and they will immediately tell you you have to buy it, with a fervor not found in other areas of the home shopping space.

When I found out I’d be having a baby, I ignored as much of this advice as possible; despite working at a website devoted to our homes and what we keep in them—or maybe because of it—I had no interest in acquiring things that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy myself, let alone enjoy looking at. My entire mentality towards parenting and the attendant accessories that will help you do it has been to spend as little money as possible. So when I was repeatedly asked—mostly by my mother—if I was getting a glider, I bristled at the idea I’d need or want one.

What is a glider anyway?

The glider is, by my understanding, a relatively modern development in child raising. Its predecessor, the rocking chair, has long been associated with caring for babies and children, as there’s nothing that more consistently quiets a ruffled infant like being held and, yes, rocked. But at some point in recent years, the rocking chair, despite its at least sometimes modern design worthy characteristics—see Thonet’s or Herman Miller’s Eames—has fallen out of favor, seemingly deemed not comfortable enough in an age of loafing. And thus has entered the glider, essentially, a padded rocking chair, an armchair that moves in a way that isn’t reclining.

The perk of the glider is that it is indeed very comfortable; when my mother suggested I get one, I knew instantly where she was coming from. But the issue with the glider is much larger and harder to solve: they are usually very ugly.

I have a few theories as to why; one, a good portion of furniture and home goods devoted to children seems to have been designed with them exclusively in mind, which is how we ended up with a furniture category almost exclusively staffed with bright colors or pastels, and nothing in between or off the the side. High design is often not considered compatible with young people, and is happy to be confined to the world of the adult (though there are thankfully some exceptions to this rule). The other is that the glider is a slight design challenge; designers seem to believe (probably rightfully) that the gliding part of the apparatus should be hidden underneath it, making it so that the best parts of a chair—its legs—aren’t able to shine. They also need to be padded on the arms, for maximum comfort, in the way rocking chairs are not. As such, most gliders are boxy, neutral, and unappealing.

A chic chair for parents (and babies)

But at some point during the nesting mania that suddenly took over my whole body, I realized that I would need a chair for the baby’s room. I started looking at vintage rocking chairs, but, perhaps because I knew the option of a glider was out there, none of them really took. I scoured the web for new and old gliders, hating most of what I saw. They were strangely stiff, with an expectant energy that felt ominous. The circular apparatus that allows for the gliding was visible in most, and hideous because of it. They were white. And then I realized that there was one option out there for me: Sixpenny’s Neva Swivel Glider Chair.

Sixpenny is one of the more expensive options in the direct-to-consumer furniture space, but its claim as a differentiator is that you’ll get what you pay for, and that they will give you everything you need to know about the purchase before you’ve made it. Founded in 2016, the company specializes in a sort of chic farmhouse aesthetic, of the kind on display at Inness, a luxury hotel in upstate New York that features custom sofas and chairs from the brand’s collaboration with design firm Post Company. That’s typically not exactly my thing, but for this project, it seemed fitting, and certainly far better than anything else I’d found. I liked that the chair leaned into the rustic softness, and didn’t look like a chair that wanted to be another chair.

The issue with the glider is much larger and harder to solve: they are usually very ugly.

After reaching out to the team about getting sent a sample, I went about picking my materials. The Neva Glider is the chair version of the brand’s popular sofa, and is available in dozens of fabrics and colors. Because time was of the essence (baby on the way) and I wanted something relatively easy to clean (baby would be in the chair), I went with the Light Weight Linen in Oat Flour with a feather-down fill. This fabric allowed for spot cleaning, and the light color would be fade-resistant for a piece of furniture sitting in front of a bright window. When it comes to buying online, the level of detail on the Sixpenny website will wow you compared to similar competitors; the site offers many guides, from details on the materials and comfort level of each piece, to fabric care—including what fabrics work best for homes with kids. One of their claims to fame is that their prices don’t include hidden fees after you go to check out; this chair, depending on fabric, starts at $1,499.

They go deep on delivery too. There are several guides on how to measure to make sure your piece will fit in the space intended—and make it through your home to its final destination. Delivery is free for threshold service, so the price you are quoted when you look at the piece is the final one, and $100 added on if you want white-glove.

My chair was sent via white-glove. Though setting up the delivery date was a little complex—I missed a call from the shipping service they use and was told if I didn’t call back immediately my pre-chosen delivery date and time wouldn’t happen; when I called back, there was a lengthy hold time—once that was squared away, it was placed in the baby’s room in a couple short weeks.

Though I had visions, ones I assumed came from movies and TV, of immediately sitting in the chair all the time, the first few months of my child’s life, I spent limited time with the chair (in fact, the first photo I have of it is my partner cradling a bowl of beans while sitting in it eating his lunch). Babies are so small when they first arrive that I found breastfeeding sitting in a chair while recovering from birth hardly comfortable. But as the weeks have passed, we have spent more and more time sitting in it together. To my pleasure, I have spot cleaned it without incident, past the need for spot cleaning in the first place, of course. There is something so calm and nice knowing that she will (mostly) have the same evening to look forward to every night: a bath, a bottle in her chair, eating and "reading," before heading to the beyond (sleep). So it turns out I did need a glider—and that, of course, my mother, who proclaimed this one "not a bad looking piece of furniture," was yet again right.

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